North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile as Seoul, Washington Prepare Joint Drills

North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the East Sea early Wednesday, South Korean and Japanese authorities said, marking Pyongyang's second weapons test in under a week and its 11th suspected ballistic missile launch of 2026. The test came just days before South Korea and the United States are due to begin their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was detected around 6:00 a.m. local time, fired from the Wonsan area and flying more than 700 kilometers before coming down. The military said it had strengthened surveillance and was sharing information closely with counterparts in Washington and Tokyo. Japan's Defence Ministry said on social media that the suspected ballistic missile had already fallen, without giving further details on its flight path or impact.

The launch follows a shorter-range ballistic missile test on August 6, also fired from the Wonsan area, which had been North Korea's first such activity since late June. Pyongyang has not officially acknowledged either launch.

The timing is notable given the upcoming Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, set to run for 11 days starting August 17 and involving about 18,000 South Korean troops, a scale similar to previous years. Seoul and Washington describe the exercise as purely defensive, but North Korea has historically condemned it as rehearsal for an invasion and has often responded with weapons tests of its own.

Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea specialist at Kyungnam University, told AFP that Pyongyang "has never simply let a South Korea-US joint military exercise pass without a response." He added that the latest launch signals the North is watching the drills closely and could carry out further provocations if it judges them necessary.

The missile test comes amid a broader escalation in North Korea's rhetoric toward Japan, having criticized Tokyo's defense posture in public statements at least seven times since July, including a recent condemnation of Japan's defense white paper. Pyongyang has also drawn scrutiny over its expanding military ties with Russia; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that Moscow used a North Korean-made ballistic missile in a strike that killed seven workers at a steel plant in Zaporizhzhia.

With tensions already elevated across the region, analysts say the North's pattern of testing around allied exercises suggests Pyongyang will keep using missile launches as a tool to signal displeasure and maintain leverage as the drills unfold.